Tuesday, 20 August 2013

A Nice Wild Brown Trout and a Good wee Rainbow Too !

Sunday 18th August 2013

After my fishless escapade on Friday my good pal Chris gave me a tinkle on Sunday to see if I fancied a wee afternoon session on a fairly local loch and as I was at a bit of a loose end decided it would be down right bad manners not to accept.

So, around 2.30 p.m. ( ideal time to go fishing in my books ) Chris arrived as scheduled only for me to find that Fridays jaunt into deepest darkest Perthshire had not only left me fishles. It had left me priestless and knifeless as well. Yes, you got it folks. I had lost my knife and priest and boy was I scunnered about it. The knife was a wee jack pike wood and stainless lock number and the priest was of the wood and brass variety. Neither were particularly expensive but they were useful bits of kit that I had grown attached to over a period of about 10 years. So, to now find I had become unattached was a bit of a bummer to say the least.

So, not being one to cry over lost knives, priests or the like ( Boo Hoo ) me and Chris headed for the loch on a fair but slightly blowy kindof overcast day. Just the kindof day that is ideally suited to fishing and infact exactly the same kindof weather that only managed to produce 2 trout to five rods on Friday. This being the case, there was a score to settle and manliness to prove for the two 21st century hunter gatherers, namely me and Chris who were forging their way to the water in a silver people carrier complete with carbon fibre rods, aluminium reels, synthetic based fly lines and fluorocarbon leaders and tippets. Exactly as our prehistoric fathers of the 20th century had done just over a decade ago LOL. Blah, blah, blah blah, blah.

Anyway time is short and I've stuff to do so I'll get on with the rest of the story in brief and maybe spin the whole yarn with my usual literary flair and flamboyance some other time.

We got to the environs of the loch about 2.50 and after a short run through the trees along a single track road where we met a few folk out for a Sunday walk we arrived at the car park. Not wasting too much time we tackled up both opting for floating lines and fairly traditional flies. There were two other boats on the loch when we arrived but they left soon after we got on the water. My casting excellence and now almost legendary fish catching abilities had obviously preceeded me - not. More like they'd probably been out since the crack of dawn and had filled their boots for the day.

Regardless, for the first hour and a half I'd say we plodded on with our original traditional set up with little luck and with time marching on I decided for a change of tactics opting for a slow intermediate line, big lure on the point and two trads on the droppers. After a slight change of location and a nice drift by Chris which put us on an anchor position which was just about exactly right. A perfect cast and slow retrieve by myself produced an almost indiscernable take which I thought I'd dropped but hadn't and then realised I was into a nice brown trout which to be fair for it's size didn't put up much of a fight. I brought it to the boat quickly, Chris netted it and we had ourselves aboard a nice wild brown trout at just over 1 1/4 pounds and 15.5 inches long.

The fish was weighed and measured so the stats are accurate. I'm just surprised how dull the fight was as I've had better from fish half the size and the fact that on a three fly cast with two trads and a lure, the wild troot hit the lure. WTF did it think it was ?

Well, time was on the move and it was looking as though Chris might blank for a wee bit but not to be defeated he soon had a nice rainbow about 2lbs off the top on a Kate McLaren which was rapidly returned and we fished on till seven having no further luck on what seemed like a perfect night for fishing.

Boat stowed rods away we headed home. Another nice wee after/eve session spent in the company of a good pal - Cheers M8

Oh Aye, almost forgot to mention me and my youngest had the helix aspersa/escargot I collected in the East Neuk a few weeks ago for tea after giving them a 3 minute warm bath and roasting them in the oven for ten mins with some nice garlic and parsley butter - Lovely !